While the rest of the world tries to figure out the best way to return to education this fall in ways they never have before, Sweden is planning too...as normal.
Regardless of Covid-19 and all of the worldwide panic and sickness it has spread, preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools in Sweden have been open and are operating as normal through it all.
Every end of July or beginning of August is a chaotic yet exciting time for teachers. They are planning their curriculums, decorating classrooms, reaching out to families: the works! Right now, the world has an added stress of Covid to also add to their planning. I am preparing to enter my third year of teaching without this added stress in Stockholm, Sweden while my friends in the US are preparing for a wide array of ways to return to schools this fall, some without having a plan set in place yet. They’re getting “first day of school” ready with online lessons, hybrid classes, shorter days, and lessons held outside. Some schools are waiting to see how infection rates fluctuate near the first day of school. Some schools are fully committed to only online lessons. Some schools are opening based on parent input. However, that’s not the case for grade school teachers in Sweden. I am in an interesting position where I have begun my back to school planning and preparation all as normal. Teachers, students, and parents across the globe are scared to go back. In Sweden, people aren’t scared to go back, because, well, we never left.
Though there was a lot of concern, controversy, and discomfort (in and out of Sweden) when Swedish schools remained open for the entirety of the school year and never fully switched over to online learning, it remains business as usual for Swedish schools since we never went online anyways. And with more uncertainty and stress still to come in terms of the pandemic, I at least will not have to worry about the what, the how, the why, and the when for the start of my year.